Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Chivalry’ On The Network, Where A Progressive Director And A Misogynistic Producer Butt Heads On A Film As They Grow Closer To Each Other

Part of the strategy for the new ad-supported streaming service The Network is that they’re going to introduce two new shows per week: A drama on Tuesdays and a comedy on Thursdays. After dropping The Green Veil earlier this week, they’re now dropping their first comedy. It was made for the UK’s Channel 4 in 2022, so it’s not brand-new and it’s not produced by the streamer. But it’s new to the U.S., and we wonder why no one decided to pick this show up for this market until now.

CHIVALRY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Scenes of Los Angeles, including a billboard for a movie called Mother Of God.

The Gist: The director of that film, Bobby Sohrabi (Sarah Solemani), gets out of her car and walks into a glitzy hotel, where producer Cameron O’Neal (Steve Coogan) is holding court with two young women. The studio has asked Bobby to talk to Pierre (Djilali Rez-Kallah), the director of the movie Cameron is producing. Cameron figures that Bobby, as a director and a woman, can talk to him about the changes that the studio wants to make to Pierre’s film A Little Death, mostly with regards to how it depicts women.

Pierre, in a robe eating steak off a room service tray, insists that what the studio is asking for is a death knell for his art, and inhibits his ability to express himself. He tells Bobby that the sex worker that she cast in Mother Of God had integrity, and tells her not to sell out. During this last part of the conversation, he’s rubbing his left arm. Suddenly Pierre slumps over, having had a fatal heart attack.

Jane (Wanda Sykes), the head of the studio, is elated at the news; Pierre has been a thorn in her side, and besides, a dead director could really juice the film come awards season. She wants Bobby to finish the film. It’s actually not an ask, it’s an order, at least if Bobby wants to make her “menstrual Bible film,” as Jane calls it, she’ll have to work with the misogynistic Cameron and finish the film.

She watches the current cut of the film (which needs “polishing,” as Cameron says) and immediately pinpoints a pivotal sex scene as a problem. She wants to discuss it, but the studio requires another woman present when a man and woman discuss a sex scene. Cameron finds his assistant Ama (Lolly Adefope), whom he calls “Anna”. As they discuss the scene, Bobby welcomes Ama’s input, until Ama thinks that it would be really powerful if the main character squirted during the scene.

In the editing bay, Cameron and Bobby argue over what Bobby thinks is a pretty standard scene that doesn’t forward the story at all. She thinks it would be more powerful if the movie’s star, Lark (Sienna Miller) showed her genitals instead of her breasts. A discussion ensues where Cameron is disabused of the notion that the external view of a woman’s genitals is her actual vagina. Finally, it comes down to him asking Bobby what she wants in the film, “tits or pussy?”

The two go to the set to visit Lark, who complains about the sex scene as well as the fact that she filed a formal complaint about Pierre that was secretly pushed aside by Cameron. As disgusted as Bobby is by that piece of information, she tells Lark she should like the new direction that scene will be going in.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Chivalry, written by Solemani and Coogan for the UK’s Channel 4 two years ago, isn’t all that different than some other behind-the-scenes-in-Hollywood series like Reboot.

Our Take: Because Coogan and Solemani are the show’s writers, they have a good handle on their characters, which is the reason why Chivalry is less of a parody of Hollywood archetypes than you might expect. Yes, Bobby is likely on the “woke” side of being progressive, sometimes insufferably so, and Cameron can be a sexist, misogynistic prat. But neither of them are cartoon versions of either kind of character, and there seems to be a middle ground between them where the two of them will end up meeting as they try to finish this film.

As much as he thinks that Bobby’s film is overrated, and that he seems to sleep with anyone and everyone, Cameron knows why Bobby is there and the perspective she brings. Will he come over to her side? Probably not. But he will try to compromise in order to get the film locked on time and on budget, since that’s pretty much his job.

As for Bobby, she can handle some good old-fashioned harassment and shove it back in the faces of people like Cameron and Pierre. As much as she hates the Hollywood system, she knows how it works and how to foster change from within. It’s why she may tell Cameron that he’s itching for a lawsuit, but also knows that the film that’s gotten her so much acclaim has brought her some cache, even with the Camerons of the world.

The rest of the series will likely be silly Hollywood stuff, rife with cameos, like the one we saw from Paul Rudd in the first episode. We’re still not sure how Miller’s demanding character Lark will play out; is she a stereotypical ego-driven actor and a shitty boss to her assistant, or will she also have some shading to her? We hope that Coogan and Solemani apply the shading they’ve given the other characters to Lark and some of the other side characters, as well.

Sex and Skin: We see some footage of the film’s sex scene, but most of the sexual content is basically talk.

Parting Shot: As Bobby and Cameron wonder just what the hell they’re doing working together, Bobby leaves Lark’s trailer and tells Cameron that she put the sex worker character from her previous film in his head.

Sleeper Star: Is it a stretch to say that we want to see more of Wanda Sykes as the blunt studio head Jane? Also, as usual, Lolly Adefope makes the most of limited screen time as Ama.

Most Pilot-y Line: Every time someone says to Bobby that “I loved your movie,” they don’t name it. That leads us to believe that no one has seen it. Even when Lark says, “Wasn’t the ending a bit obvious?” it’s a generic enough question to indicate to us she didn’t seethe film at all. We’re not sure if this joke is going to be continued in other episodes, but if it is, we’re also not sure audiences are going to get it.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Because Sarah Solemani and Steve Coogan have cleverly made their characters in Chivalry more nuanced than you might expect, the chemistry between them makes us believe that they’re going to grow closer despite their massive philosophical differences. And that believability is half the battle for any show.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.